Ontario to spend $784M to build and repair schools

Ontario will spend $784 million this year to build or renovate 79 schools across the province but opposition critics say it’s not enough to address a growing multibillion-dollar repair backlog.

Education Minister Mitzie Hunter said Monday the funding will support construction of 39 new schools, and additions and renovations to 40 additional facilities. The work will include development of child-care centres in the schools, with plans to create 2,700 new child-care spaces.

“Ontario is committed to building learning environments that support student achievement and well-being,” Hunter said in a statement. “That’s why we continue to invest in new, renovated and expanded schools so that every student can learn and grow in a space that enables them to reach their full potential.” The government said the announcement comes in addition to a funding commitment made by the province last year to spend $1.4 billion on school repairs.

The province has an approximate $15-billion repair backlog at its 4,900 publicly funded schools.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said the funding doesn’t go far enough to address the accumulated repair backlog.

“It’s a bit late now, before an election, for the Liberals to make a promise that should have been made years ago. Students deserve better,” Brown said in a statement.

NDP critic Peggy Sattler also said the funding wasn’t adequate. “The government has not been making those ongoing annual investments that are required to chip away at some of the deterioration that has occurred in our educational infrastructure across the province,” she said, characterizing the cash as a repackaged funding commitment from the 2017 budget.

Sattler said the way the province funds schools needs to be rebuilt. Currently, the funding formula doesn’t accurately project the maintenance and repair needs of schools, she said.

“Slowly, year-over-year, that backlog was allowed to grow,” she said.